


Anybody

by LiinHaglund



Series: Indefinite Pronouns [3]
Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Good Laufey (Marvel), Jotunn | Frost Giant, Jötunheimr | Jotunheim, Royalty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-10
Updated: 2019-08-10
Packaged: 2020-08-14 05:30:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20187076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LiinHaglund/pseuds/LiinHaglund
Summary: -





	Anybody

**Author's Note:**

> This will make NO SENSE if you have not read Possessive Pronouns! 
> 
> My scribbles from 2015-ish on how Helblindi grew up. I will expand on this later.

His mother was acting stranger and stranger, and Nal was not too sure he liked the direction things had taken.

He had taken several of his siblings to the army, given them new heritage lines to hide them, and made sure they knew to stay put. They were always more than willing to be hidden.

* * *

His mother handed him a boy of perhaps five. Nal had been away on Svartalfheim for nearly six years.

“A gift,” she said.

“You are too kind.” He eyed the boy as if it was a torturer's favorite tool. In a way it was. There was no denying that the boy was his.

“His name is Ulv.”

“Lovely.” What else do you say when you are handed a child? Thanks? Not likely.

“Your sisters cause me trouble, Nal. The boy is blind. I have no time to care for him.” She left him, her handmaiden leading her away.

The court was no place for a child. His mother was still a beauty, always had been, but her mind had once been sound. Now that it was not, the helpless young were mere prey to her.

* * *

Nal tried his best not to care about the boy – she had named him Ulv – but while he was mild mannered and often meek he had moments when he demanded things. His mother's best torturer could hardly have brought him more pain than his son asking for a hug when he felt how desperately lonely he boy was through the bond.

Not caring seemed doomed to fail, Nal mused, as he held the child close to his chest. This time of his own free will.

* * *

He left Ulv with a hunter clan while he himself left for Muspelheim on his – _their_ – mother's request. He was temporarily safe there. No one dared cross him, but with him gone Ulv was just another of the many children cowering in the palace, waiting for her to find them in a twisted game of hide and seek.

Being caught meant death.

Food was plentiful, but she preferred the taste of her own kind. Mostly she ate the troublemakers, the ones opposing her and their family, but she would cull her own if she felt like it.

Nal felt caught between the love he still had for her and the wish for one of his sisters to replace her. They were wise in many things, but so far they had yet to pull through.

* * *

It was arranged once every few centuries; a fight to the death in an arena. A fight to prove their worth. Nal had emerged victorious since he was old enough to participate.

He did this time as well.

The feast afterward he would have gladly skipped, but his mother would never have allowed it.

How many older brothers could say they have killed their siblings in cold blood? How many can claim to have tasted their flesh? Nal knew one thing – those who did not were likely infinitely happier than he was.

At least Ulv was not old enough yet.

'_Caught is caught_' she would have said, if she had found the boy. She liked the taste of children better than adults, she had said once, but anyone who crossed her were likely to be targeted.

* * *

When the day neared, when Ulv was old enough to fight his siblings, Nal considered if it would not be kinder to simply kill the boy in his sleep before the day came. He stroked the lines he had placed on the boy, nearly identical to his own.

His son had no hope of winning.

He had tried. He had made the boy join the army. He had trained him personally.

“I asked her to send me in last,” Ulv said.

Nal closed his eyes and sighed.

“Just... make it quick.”

“If there was ever a day when I wanted you to fight for something...”

“There is no way I can win,” Ulv said stubbornly.

“I would be tired from fighting.”

“I could never do it.”

Nal sighed. He had heard it before. He had killed his loved ones before when they had asked him to. He did it for their peace of mind.

“What if I cannot kill you either?”

* * *

Nal stepped up into the arena. His mother sat on a temporary throne, watching over the bloodbath that would follow. Watched her children be slaughtered like cattle.

He killed them all, and then she did it, she sent Ulv into the bloodstained snow.

He had known it would come, but so had Ulv.

Nal walked over to his son, wrestled the knife from his nearly limp hand. Five hundred. Fully grown and as tall as Nal, perhaps, but trembling like a leaf in a gentle wind.

He threw the knife hard enough to make it lodge itself in his mother's skull, and on its tail he threw a burst of raw magic at her, just to be sure.

If she had not made him fight everyone he would have left it up to his sisters, but they were dead.

Ulv was silent.

Kvasir – who had stood beside her as her only guard – checked her corpse over. “The Queen is dead,” he said, his disappointment at Nal's actions clear.

Nal felt the tears run down his face, but he cared little for what weakness the display signaled to the gathered crowd. His family was dead. The cheers that cautiously erupted until it was a full on roar felt out of place when nearly all his bonds had been severed and he had just killed his mother.

When Kvasir made his way over to him Nal expected another fight. “You chose the boy.”

Nal nodded.

Kvasir hummed thoughtfully, turned and left. As much as Nal liked Kvasir he was never there when he had most needed his aid. Never had been.

“You are safe now,” he told Ulv.


End file.
